Fairytales
by mysterySanity
Summary: After Belle leaves his castle, the Beast muses on the stories he was told in his youth and his place in them.


After Belle left the Beast had a sudden and inexplicable recollection of childhood memories he'd though had been long lost to time, and the curse. He remembered who had really taught him to read, not his tutors, and certainly not his parents, but his nanny. He hadn't thought it at all strange at the time, Nanny knowing how to read, but now he realized it was a bit odd. His nanny had been a woman, which meant even if she was a member of highborn society her literary skills might still be barely passable, but she was a lowborn women. Still, it wasn't like he could ask her how she knew how to read now, by the time _it_ had happened he'd outgrown a nanny, and so she'd been with his parents as a nanny to his younger siblings when they'd- well that wasn't what he was remembering.

His nanny had read him fairytales every night before he went to sleep, he'd follow along in the book while she recited the tales, having long since memorized every word. They'd fascinated him, and even more so because Nanny spoke love and warm memories into every word of the tales. Stories of bold princes rescuing innocent, helpless princesses, princesses nothing like his mother. At that time he'd justified it as by reminding himself his mother was a queen, not a princess, but now he wasn't so sure. The women around his castle weren't helpless by any means, and maybe that could be explained because they weren't royalty but even Belle…

If Belle ever, by some miracle, felt anything for him like he felt towards her, or if the world was even simply a just place, Belle would be a princess. But she didn't act anything like the princesses in the stories did. She argued with him, fixed his stupid mistakes, and yelled at him when he needed to be yelled at. She was fearless and nothing like the princesses of his stories long ago. She was nothing he'd dreamed of, but everything he needed. He was actually, he realized dully, glad she wasn't a fairy tale princess. They were, as he looked back, one-dimensional, a fantasy for people who couldn't stand to believe women were people. If Belle had been approached by an odd woman offering her very odd apples in the middle of a forest, she would've had that women eating her own apples faster than you could say poison.

Oh and if that thought didn't hurt, he couldn't imagine what pain truly felt like. He felt like someone was stabbing him with a knife, repeatedly. Cogsworth and Lumiere had seemed encouraged when he'd confessed this, told him it was love, but it was nothing like he'd expected love to be. Love was supposed to be this beautiful thing that solved all the world's problems and made small animals flock to the pair in droves. Or at least that was the impression he'd gotten from his nighttime fairytales. This, this was nothing like that. This was the Beast's soul being put out for all to see, trampled on, and handed back covered in bows and beautiful smiles.

This hurt, deeply and desperately in a way he wasn't sure could ever be fixed. That was the part he wished was more like a fairytale. Fairytale love never hurt, and it was never one-sided. In fairytales love conquered all and the lovers lived happily ever after the end. Curtains were drawn, happiness was forever, and there was no pain. It figured, and was completely justified, that his love wouldn't be like that though, he reflected, after he thought it over.

What in his life was like a fairy tale? Ever since he made the stupidest decision of his eleven year old life, and all the years after, nothing had been like a fairytale for him. After all, fairytale princes didn't threaten and scare the best thing that had ever fallen into their undeserving laps. They didn't get turned into hideous beasts for being terrible human beings. Fairytale princes got fairytale endings, managed to fix everything, and slayed the villain. But, the Beast mused as he wearily watched another petal fall off the rose, he was the villain in this story, wasn't he? And villains, they didn't get fairytale endings.

**Wow, something that isn't anime trash? Attempted drama? What is happening? Basically this is my take on the Beast's thoughts when Belle leaves and it truly sinks in that, yeah, he's probably not going to get his curse broken after all.**


End file.
